UK Campaign Wants 18-Year-Olds To Be Able To Delete Embarrassing Online Past

An anonymous reader writes: People should be allowed to delete embarrassing social media posts when they reach adulthood, UK internet rights campaigners are urging. The iRights coalition has set out five rights which young people should expect online, including being able to easily edit or delete content they have created, and to know who is holding or profiting from their information. Highlighting how campaigners believe adults should not have to bear the shame of past immaturity, iRights also wants children to be protected from illegal or distressing pages; to be digitally literate; and be able to make informed and conscious choices.

Comments

No

[musmax]

Email and posts are forever. The faster you grow up on the internets the faster you'll grow up. Actions have consequences and it is by suffering from those that we become more human and less of that thing a 18 year old is. It will be a massive disservice to both the individual and society if we don't have that.

Re:No

[fustakrakich]

Maybe a big old EMP every 20 years might be a good thing. Wipe it all out. Start everything over.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the "Over 18-year olds" need to understand that 18-year-olds are in-fact:

18-year-olds.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Best Solution

How about restrict internet to 18 years or older.

Re:No

[davester666]

Great. IP will NEVER enter the public domain.

Re:No

[FlyHelicopters]

It is a shame that you were modded up so fast...

It isn't a pretty future when you're 30 years old, being judged for the silly stuff you posted online at 15 years old...

Everyone has a chapter in their book they don't real out loud, including you. Stuff you did at 15, you wouldn't want the world to know about, yet you want future kids to lack that same protection...

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

I always liked this sci-fi short story according in which all information disappeared in a little puff of energy once a certain amount and density was reached due to some undiscovered physical law. I remember it was by Lem, but I'm not sure.

Re:No

[aaaaaaargh!]

Celebrities have had the same problem for ages and they learned to get along with it, too. If you don't want to embarrass yourself, don't put embarrassing photos of yourself on the Internet. Even an 8 year old can understand that.

Re:No

[Viol8]

"Everyone has a chapter in their book they don't real out loud, including you"

Not all of us mate. Sure , I did some dumb stuff but nothing I'd be particularly embarrassed about. If a teen thinks posting pictures of their genitals or a "hilarious" throwing up incident in a bar or whatever isn't going to have future consequences then they're probably so clueless and thick that they're not going to go far in life anyway.

Most teens are sensible, why should be protect the idiot minority from themselves?

Re:No

[cascadingstylesheet]

Best Solution

How about restrict internet to 18 years or older.

You mean perhaps we shouldn't let our children just wander the streets of the entire virtual world utterly unsupervised?

You speak heresy man!

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are drunk at a party and someone took a picture of you and put it on the internet, you should suffer, because you were drinking underage. Stupid idea, that.

You have choices to make, from the time you are potty trained to the time you die. If you choose to make bad decisions, they will bite you in the ass. If you learn from those decisions, good. But you can't erase the past - you made that bad decision, live with it.

Life does not have a reset button.

Like saying "I'm sorry" does not erase the fact that you raped that girl while you were drunk at that party, and did it in front your "buddies" who took those pictures and videos.
And those selfies of your tits and pussy, or your dick, that you took to send your current crush - the one who sent it to all of their friends (and your mom and dad) because {insert reason here} oops, there forever, stupid.

You support laws like Megan's law, which punishes sex offenders long after they have paid their debt to society (served their time).
What's good for them is good for you. Get over it.

Re:No

[RabidReindeer]

The irony is that these days if you let your little darlings wander physical streets unsupervised, they'll come and arrest you and take away your children leaving them traumatized because the police hauled Mommy and Daddy off to jail and the Social Services people told the kiddies that their parents were horrible abusive creatures who deserved never to be allowed to see them again.

For doing what everyone thought was natural 20 years or so ago.

Re:No

[AmiMoJo]

Regardless of how common it is,

Most teens are sensible, why should be protect the idiot minority from themselves?

Because they are children. Children are not adults, they are not fully responsible, and they make mistakes. That's how they learn, and we of course forgive them and mostly forget about it. We certainly don't bring up their bed wetting at age 4 all the time. It's just what kids do, and some of them don't have the best parents in the world to help them avoid those mistakes either.

Anyway, the alternative is that a lot of people change their legal name to get away from their past. Even then, psychologically it's still difficult to handle.

Re:No

[xaxa]

A young woman was elected as an MP in Scotland, regardless of the "colourful" Tweets she'd written since she was 14: http://www.express.co.uk/news/...

Wikipedia says "as most of them were a few years old they were generally ascribed to immaturity and did not appear to do any significant damage": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:No

[invid]

Very shortly, the general views that many people hold about privacy, such as 'I don't want the world to see my sex video' or 'Those pictures of me passed out on the toilet are mortifying' or 'I didn't mean to ramble on about your privates on Twitter' will seem Victorian by comparison to what people will simply accept as part of being human. Instead of going through the draconian methods that would be required to maintain privacy, society will simple learn to accept a world without it.

Re:No

[wues]

This is indeed by Lem. No idea about English translation, but in Polish it was published as short story "Profesor DoÅda" in the volume "Maska" ("The Mask") in 1976. The idea was that energy, matter and information are all equivalent and if you reach critical amount of information it will turn to matter, forming a new Universe separate from ours. The story is grotesque and really funny.

Re:No

[sjames]

Or you just don't hear about it because they don't tell you. Younger teens are neurologically incapable of making good decisions about future consequences. That part of the brain is literally not wired up yet.

Re:No

[Viol8]

If you're old enough to join the army or vote you're old enough to accept responsibility for your actions. End.

Re:No

[Penguinisto]

True, but personally, I propose that the age be raised to 30 before deletion... let the kids get a taste of those consequences, then have said consequences hang around long enough to learn from it. Only then should they get a do-over.

Re:No

[tompaulco]

The irony is that these days if you let your little darlings wander physical streets unsupervised, they'll come and arrest you and take away your children leaving them traumatized because the police hauled Mommy and Daddy off to jail and the Social Services people told the kiddies that their parents were horrible abusive creatures who deserved never to be allowed to see them again.

For doing what everyone thought was natural 20 years or so ago.

It still is natural. It's just that most people are idiots who can't keep their nose out of your business.

Re:No

[sjames]

It helps when your bank account holds enough to retire comfortably on right now. As for 8 year olds, no. They can parrot it back for you and sort of understand it, but until their frontal lobe takes over fully for their amygdala, they will make plenty of mistakes in that area.

Re:No

[tompaulco]

Life does not have a reset button.

But Social Media could. Why shouldn't we let it have a reset button just because life doesn't?

Re:No

[sjames]

You support laws like Megan's law, which punishes sex offenders long after they have paid their debt to society (served their time). What's good for them is good for you. Get over it.

Actually, I don't. I espectally don't support putting people who pissed on dumpsters in the middle of the night on those lists.

It's people with your attitude who support those laws.

Life used to have a total reset button. Move 100 miles and you become who you say you are. You had to start over with trust in your community, but if you learned from your previous mistake, you could come to be seen as an upstanding member of the community.

Re:No

[boristdog]

And only when they have shown proper penance.

And nudes from 18+ years on never get deleted.

Re:No

[Kjella]

This. By far most embarrassing things you've said or done are laid dead when you own up to it and say I was young and foolish, okay? Most of the problem actually comes from shielded youngsters who are still too mentally immature to blush, cope and move on. Of course there are situations you might be caught in that would be genuinely embarrassing, like revenge porn but then you're typically dealing with malice and an army of Internet trolls who won't let it go away anyway. In short, either you ought to grow a thicker skin or you have to grow a thicker skin.

Re:No

[kenai_alpenglow]

Yep. I remember when I was under 18, and some other "under 18s" did stupid stuff (riding 4-wheeler down active railroad tracks?!?!?). Somethings you just can't get a re-do on. I figure a few "under 18s" stopped riding their 4-wheelers down the tracks....maybe....

Re:No

[Coren22]

That is playing out in Maryland right now. The parents are mostly winning after two times having their kids taken away. Though one of the kids is 6 years old and female, so there may be some issues there for good reason.

Re:No

[AmiMoJo]

The article is about things did before they were 18. Also, your argument is flawed anyway because it's possible people shouldn't be allowed to join the army or vote at 18.

Re:No

[rwa2]

Yep, this. People understand that you were young. Even evil conniving politicians bent on dredging up your ruin. In fact, what I've heard of from the Instagram generation is that they won't trust you as an authentic human being. I wouldn't be surprised if millennial hiring managers would weed out applicants without a sufficiently convincing social media footprint including childhood transgressions. So get cracking, geezers!

Re:No

[AthanasiusKircher]

Instead of going through the draconian methods that would be required to maintain privacy, society will simple learn to accept a world without it.

Perhaps that will come to pass, but likely not for a couple generations.

Basically, for people to ignore all that stuff, you'll need the "people in power" to be okay with it. Most of the people in power are middle-aged or older. Social media stuff has only been the norm for about a decade, so I'd say we'll need to wait at least 20-30 years before most of the "people in power" will have grown up with it.

And then, guess what -- there's a filtering process for the "people in power" where the old "people in power" decide who the new ones will be. And so there will be an even greater lag, where the first generation of "social media natives" will still be shamed as they try to build careers, so in 20-30 years, the "people in power" will be "social media natives," but they'll mostly be selected by the previous generation and thus will hold a "higher standard" -- i.e., the kids who didn't do most of the "nasty stuff" when they where kids.

Maybe when you get about 40-50 years from now, you'll get a true transformation like you describe, assuming current trends continue (which, well... who would have predicted this current world 50 years ago?).

By the way, you can look for this sort of morality issue in various political campaigns, etc. What most of the "cool kids" were doing in the 60s (in terms of drugs, sexual practices, etc.) was definitely not acceptable even when that generation came to power in the 80s and 90s. Maybe in the past few years, we've finally started to see a majority of the public okay with some drugs, etc., but that's been a really slow transformation, as I described above.

Re:No

[jedidiah]

> But Social Media could. Why shouldn't we let it have a reset button just because life doesn't?

No it could not.

Once something is "out there" then it is out there forever. Even if you go out of your way to hunt it down and destroy it, there will still be hiding places available.

That's why it's absurd to even contemplate the "right to be forgotten". You can't these days.

It actually would be easier for society to adapt to the new reality versus trying to impose a technological solution.

Re:No

[jedidiah]

That's just BS. I know pre-teens that have sense. We just have this pathological aversion to allowing people to be responsible for themselves and it doesn't stop at the age of majority.

It doesn't help that we actively discourage any development of practical life skills or experience. The fact that we always keep our children locked up at all times is part of that.

Re:No

[KGIII]

The lists are retarded. I figured I would look up someone's claim that they can not be cured. Yeah... About that? Sex offenders have a lower rate of recidivism than any other criminal except murderers. This was true even before Megan's law. This was true before the witch hunt. We may want to think about that law before we make a bunch of criminals (who have learned new skills in prison and are now angry and hopeless while free on the streets) unwilling to be idle any longer.

Re:No

[sjames]

That's just BS.

No it isn't. It is a fact of human development.

That doesn't mean helicopter parenting is in order or that they can't manage at home by themselves for a while with generally increasing autonomy, but it does mean that expecting adult thinking about longer term life choices will be hit and miss at best. It makes no more sense to hold them forever responsible for their actions than it does to teach calculus in kindergarten.

While pulling everything off the internet forever isn't really possible, we can certainly disallow use of old information from childhood when deciding on employment or credit at the very least.

Re:No

[sjames]

See the references here.

If your claim was true, parents would instinctively tell their 5 year olds to go to bed when they feel like it and wouldn't worry about it if their 12 year old decided not to come home until morning.

Instead, they recognize that the 5 year old is developmentally advanced enough to avoid immediate threats but is nowhere near ready to plan their future.

Your knowledge is decades out of date.

Re:No

[sjames]

Since we are discussing rules for the society where those links hold true, it hardly matters.

If/when society changes radically enough, we can revisit.

That will be quite a radical change though since as far back as written history goes, we find remarks about young adults being more rash and hot-headed than their elders and so in need of guidance.

Re:No

[david_thornley]

There's also a lot of hypocrisy. Quite a few people in government use illegal drugs and don't advocate for their legalization.

Re:No

[david_thornley]

Ideally, we try not to let teenagers mess up their lives permanently for stuff they do as children. It's not possible to succeed completely, but telling a 35-year-old that they should suffer from stupid posts they made when they were 15 does absolutely no good. Consequences need to be fairly fast to be useful in molding behavior.

Re:No

[suutar]

It's never going to anyway. What's the difference?

Re:No

[antdude]

And require Internet license like driver licenses. ;)

And...

[Anonymous Coward]

And I want a toilet seat made out of gold, but it's just not on the cards now is it?

Here's a thought...

[Dutch Gun]

Kids & Teens: Don't post embarrassing photos or videos of yourself online, or put yourself in a position where others can post embarrassing photos or videos of you online. Don't think you can be anonymous online, because someone WILL recognize you or figure out who you are, given enough incentive. Consider it a valuable life lesson that you actually *can't* retract everything you do in life so easily.

Parent: Get involved and teach your children to be responsible online. Just like in the real world, there are rules for behaving safely and responsibly online. When things go public, there's no way to retrieve those images from everyone who may have gotten a copy, and no amount of legislation is going to change that reality, however much some people may wish it.

Legislators: Stop pretending that you can fix all the world's ills with the sweep of a pen. Start learning what IS and ISN'T possible in the online world. Or for God's sake, at least ask one of your younger tech-savvy interns before you make a fool of yourself with this sort of stuff.

Re:Here's a thought...

[ruir]

For the legislators it is easy, it is not their money, and they can put google and the ISPs working "for free" at their beckoning. At the end of the day it is us, the end users and consumers, footing the bill as always.

Re:Here's a thought...

[Dutch Gun]

Just to be clear, I do have some sympathy for people who are out in public, and are caught in an embarrassing situation not of their own making. Say, for example, a dog playing at the beach tugs at person's swimsuit and pulls it down. Pretty embarrassing, and not exactly anyone's fault. Someone films it with their smartphone and posts it online anonymously for kicks. Your situation is another good example.

This sort of thing can happen much more easily, because nowadays *everyone* has a handy videocamera available right in their smartphone. I'm perfectly fine with laws meant to protect people against that sort of abuse, or to compel services to remove photos or videos of that nature upon request. That being said, everyone has to understand that there's no way to permanently remove data from "the internet", only from a few specific sites. And anyone who downloaded that information could always upload it again. That's the hard reality of the world we live in. The information age provides some amazing benefits, but it certainly has downsides as well.

Part of this is a human problem as well. Who exactly posted these rumors on FB about you? Is passing a law about this going to fix the underlying problem here? That's sort of what I'm getting at. I'm saying that people need to understand that this is the new reality. Part of this needs to be some restraint in people NOT posting unfounded rumors about others online at the drop of a hat. I wouldn't shed a tear if the person who spread those rumors about you got reprimanded or fired because of pulling bullshit like that. Responsibility has to go both ways.

Re:Here's a thought...

[Beck_Neard]

When I was a teen in the late 90's and early 2000's I was a member on a number of forums and I had a pretty thorough presence on the 'social media' sites of the time. Yet I don't think I ever wrote something of significant embarrassing consequence to me now. I don't think it was because I was particularly mature (I wasn't, actually it was the opposite) but instead I think the nature of social media changed. Back then you would mostly be talking with a small group of like-minded friends. Anything dumb that you wrote would never have been known by a large number of people. Nowadays twitter and facebook and youtube make it possible for 14 year olds to have thousands of followers. A premature brain should not have that kind of exposure. Of course bad stuff is going to happen.

I don't know how to change this. Maybe restrict the access of teenagers to mass social media, or put educational programs in schools that inform kids of the dangers.

Re:Here's a thought...

[Zontar The Mindless]

Did you confront the responsible party? No? Then don't ask everyone else to fix your problem, which is with that person, not with us or the Internet.

Re:Here's a thought...

[mwvdlee]

Don't [...] put yourself in a position where others can post embarrassing photos or videos of you online

Seriously... were you ever a kid or a teen yourself, or were you born a boring old grampa?
Doing embarrassing things is what kids do; it's how they learn what not to do.
The problem is hypocritical people who like to pretend they never did anything embarrassing when they were kids.

Re:Here's a thought...

[Dutch Gun]

That's why I included parents in that topic (and teachers can also be helpful here). They're supposed to provide some wisdom and guidance about these sorts of things. Just have a conversation with your kids about being careful about what you post online, because those sorts of things can't *really* ever be deleted, and can have real-life consequences.

You need to start from that reality, and not with wishful thinking about being able to magically erase your past. It would be great if it were possible, but it's simply not.

Re:Here's a thought...

[jandersen]

Well, good advice, to be sure, but really, just grow up, everybody. When you are teenager, you do embarrassing things - that is what the teens are for. When we grow up, one of the things need to learn is to forgive ourselves and learn to live with having left a trail of evidence. With the right kind of attitude, it can be a great source of experience and humour; it really isn't a big deal - and it ought to be asset.

The problem isn't that we are stupid when we are teenagers - at that age, you need to experiment in order to find out about things, and you have a right to make errors and be forgiven. The real problem is when these things are blown out of all proportion, by employers, political enemies or by the shallow end of the press - I mean, look back at the continuous smear campaigns against one president after another. Does it really matter that Dubya once yelled 'Fuck you' after his mother? Does it matter that Clinton once smoked a joint and maybe even enjoyed it? Of course not - what matters is what they do when they are in office.

Re:Here's a thought...

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Only 15 year olds who live at home think that people can "sue their employer" and continue to get jobs going into the future.

Even more so for something like "someone at work saw a picture of me, and they therefore took negative action, but the picture wasn't what it looked like, your Honor! ".

Your stupid post against permitting 15 year olds protection against their embarrassing youthful mistakes
  might expose you as a person with poor judgement for the rest of your lifem, except I see you're using a pseuonym in this thread and for this particular post you went AC.

So you DO see the social utiility in not being exposed to enduring critical evaluation because of something stupid you said once somewhere at soem point during your life.

So you're a hypocrit as well as.

Nicely played, Sir!

Re:Here's a thought...

[thegarbz]

or put yourself in a position where others can post embarrassing photos or videos of you online

So basically don't ever be a teenager. ... ever.

Mind you we were locked in our parent's basements most of our lives and we turned out alright right?

Re:Here's a thought...

[jareth-0205]

Also, control all your friends so that they don't post any information online about you. Control Google and whoever's facial recognition algorthms from auto tagging you. Control all the stuff you have no possible control over, because I don't want to consider that possibly this new technology we've invented might have really bad consequences and I can't be bothered to do anything about it.

Re:Here's a thought...

[dcw3]

If you believe that you can " Just have a conversation with your kids...", and them actually doing as you told them, then you've never raised a child. Children, especially teenagers, are irrational, and typically rebellious.

Re:Here's a thought...

[AmiMoJo]

That being said, everyone has to understand that there's no way to permanently remove data from "the internet", only from a few specific sites.

Indeed, which is why the EU requiring major search engines to remove results for people's names is quite sensible. The information is still there, but a casual search won't find it. In the same way as in the past old news articles were available on microfiche, and old photos were in people's personal collections, but you had to make a lot of effort to find them.

And anyone who downloaded that information could always upload it again.

To an extent, but existing copyright laws already prevent people from re-posting material they don't own and don't have permission to use. Actually that's an area that needs reform too, because at the moment the victims of revenge porn sometimes have to send photos of their naked bodies to the copyright office to establish ownership and get material taken down.

Re:Here's a thought...

[JaredOfEuropa]

someone WILL recognize you or figure out who you are, given enough incentive.

Worse: face recognition software is getting better all the time, and it's only a matter of time before search engines and social media start tagging images. Once something or someone puts your name to your likeness online, all (or at least a good many) images with you in it can be found by typing your name into Google.

What legislators can do is to make it very clear that private life stuff should stay out of the workplace, and not affect job applications or performance reviews. Put it on the same level as discrimination, outing a homosexual against their will, etc, for which such laws already exist. These laws have not eradicated discrimination and homophobia from the workplace, and neither will they put an end to employers misusing info gleaned from social media sites, but they have helped.

Re:Here's a thought...

[Ol Olsoc]

Kids & Teens: Don't.

be human?

Re:Here's a thought...

[gsslay]

When you're a kid/teen you don't know what may be an embarrassing photo or video. That's what being a kid/teen is about. The video you put online, discussing international politics with your impeccable 12 year-old wisdom, may have been the proudest day of your life. ... 10 years later and it's a cringe-fest that makes you appear to be an idiot who's a little bit racist.

You get older, you learn something of life, you realise that aged 12 you knew nothing, and you'd rather no-one was watching that video. It does not represent who you are now. What's wrong with wanting it gone?

Re:Here's a thought...

[tompaulco]

Legislators: Stop pretending that you can fix all the world's ills with the sweep of a pen. Start learning what IS and ISN'T possible in the online world.

But it IS possible to delete posts off of Social Media, the sites just don't allow it.

Re:Here's a thought...

[sjames]

You're asking kids to behave as adults. You might as well mock a baby for pissing itself for all the good it will do.

Remember, there was a time long ago when you saw nothing at all embarrassing about sitting in your own filth.

Re:Here's a thought...

[cayenne8]

outing a homosexual against their will,

Where the hell do you live where this is actually a law on the books???

Re:Here's a thought...

[JaredOfEuropa]

It's not explicitly mentioned but falls under harassment and privacy laws. There is plenty of case law in various countries that do explicitly mention outing an employee as an actionable offense.

Re:Here's a thought...

[JesseMcDonald]

What's wrong with wanting it gone?

There's nothing wrong with wanting it gone, perhaps, but what's wrong about enforcing that desire by law is that it amounts to trying to censor factual information about the past. You don't have to tell anyone about your more embarrassing historical moments, but it's wrong to forcibly prevent others from sharing what information they possess.

The right answer here is to simply recognize that people change, that it's normal to have some things in one's past that may be embarrassing (or even outright illegal), that everyone goes through this period of growing up, and that what one said or did as a child—or for that matter, as a younger adult—does not necessarily correlate with one's views or behavior in the present.

Re:Here's a thought...

[KGIII]

Note to self: Apply for job at copyright office.

Re:Here's a thought...

[KGIII]

It will never be possible to scrub your internet things. I prefer it that way. Your hope is not going to change things. Right this minute someone is making a screen shot of this very thread. Why? They have no life. However? I would not be at all surprised to see such. They probably keep a nice archive on their spare hard drive. They might even have backups.

Re:Here's a thought...

[WOOFYGOOFY]

If you have javascript enabled, they know who you are and track you all over the web. Javascript is used to uniquely identify your browser from allothers. Look up EFF's panopticon to see what I'm talking about. You're not even slightly anonymous except to other posters. Probably the same thing is true of Tor by the way since buying and hosting enugh servers to unmask Tor traffic - which is something Tor has no solution for- is like a rounding error in the NSA yearly budget, so assume it's a done deal.

HTH.

Regarding suing your employer, the fact is HR departments keep lists of do not hire people who either threatened to or did sue their employers. If you look at what Google and Apple and Adobe were doing with their blacklist of employees who tried to switch companies for a better position , then you can get a flavor for what really goes on in the market. It's far from free or fair.

And BTW if you dig deep enough (start at Gawker's coverage) you'll see this do ot hire list for techs extended far far beyond Silicon valley and included companies like H&M and companies like Target and others whose names I forget.. literlaly, there were dozens adn dozens all sharing the same do not hire list.

Why, yes, it is all illegal. And. And so what? What happened to the individuals who knowingly and flagrantly broke these laws? Ab-so-lute-ly nothing. Their careers were not impeded ithe least. The specific HR rep who was nakedly implementing this, the henchman, is now happily employed by the internet's hero Elon Musk at Tesla as.. wait for it, head of HR.

So no, you have no friends or constituency or representationin government . The law breakers break the law with personal immunity from the rule of law. At worst their corporations have to pay some in -the-larger-scheme-of-thing piddling fine.

Yeah go ahead sue your employer. And hope you win enough money so yu never have to work again because, buddy, you're not going to be working again.

It's just another aspect of the plutocracy that America is.

Re:Here's a thought...

[david_thornley]

Life lessons that don't affect you before they've ruined your life are not valuable. If you can't get a job at 25 because of a stupid thing you did at 14, how does that help you become a better person?

Re: Here's a thought...

[david_thornley]

I never did any of that. I was a well-behaved kid, which means I'd have a permanent advantage over you in the real world. I assume you learned eventually not to do that sort of thing, so it's not really relevant to who you are now, which means my advantage would be undeserved.

Re:Here's a thought...

[david_thornley]

So, if your potential boss or landlord or police officer doesn't recognize that people change, what the heck do you do?

Re:Here's a thought...

[JesseMcDonald]

So, if your potential boss or landlord or police officer doesn't recognize that people change, what the heck do you do?

For the first two, obviously, you either persuade them or you find someone else to work for / rent from. Freedom of association means that they have no obligation to hire you or rent out their property to you, regardless of the reason. Hiding information about your past which you know would be considered relevant amounts to fraud.

If your treatment by a police officer or any other representative of the government acting in an official capacity is influenced by outdated posts on social media sites, or anything else apart from your current standing under the law, you've got bigger issues. In any case, odds are that a law permitting you to delete your information from the Internet, even if it could somehow be implemented effectively, would not prevent the police from learning about your youthful indiscretions.

Re:Here's a thought...

[tehcyder]

Yet I don't think I ever wrote something of significant embarrassing consequence to me now.

You probably didn't post using your real name. The problem with Facebook is the lack of deniability.

Re: Here's a thought...

[tehcyder]

Little problem: when I was a teenager and blew up the school's mailbox, plug the toilets with paper and flooded the place up, or posted a bomb threat on the board, if I got caught I would be reprimanded, suspended and maybe pay for the damages. Now I would be on a no-hire, no-fly and no-rent list forever.

Juvenile criminal records aren't published in civilised countries. Why should they be available on the internet?

Re:Here's a thought...

[nitehawk214]

Gutter: "I didn't... exhale?"

Re:Here's a thought...

[nitehawk214]

If you are a nobody, nobody will continue to care. If you are a somebody, everyone will find out anyhow.

The real question is, why does anyone care? Why do sites like TMZ, Gawker, and Buzzfeed exist? Why are reality show stars famous? You could say they are a product of our shallow society.

I don't have any solutions or suggestions. I guess I am just a prematurely old man ranting.

Re:Here's a thought...

[david_thornley]

Freedom of association, to the extreme you make it, has been proven to cause great unfairness and social problems. If you're running a business, you are legally prohibited from not hiring a person or not serving a person because of race.

Also, in the real world (i.e., ground level and up), you do not get a chance to convince landlords and employers that your Internet record is misleading. They discard your application and/or resume without talking to you.

Embarrassment

[invictusvoyd]

Embarrassment is mostly a social thing . The individual does not define embarrassment . He is conditioned by the society to feel embarrassed in certain situations. Instead of wiping the internet , an effort to change social perspective seems to be the sane and more permanent thing to do .

Re:Embarrassment

[mwvdlee]

Are employers looking at Facebook also mostly a social thing?
The problem isn't embarrasment, it's judgmental people with the power to affect your live.

Re:Embarrassment

[invictusvoyd]

Are employers looking at Facebook also mostly a social thing?

Employers looking at Facebook is an anti-social thing

Re:Embarrassment

[Anonymous Coward]

If everyone has done something embarrassing then no-one has done something embarrassing.

This is just growing pains where we have one generation that grew up without Internet together with a generation that grew up with it.
In a few generations when we are more used to people being flawed it will be more accepted.
Perhaps teenagers won't feel the necessity to commit sodoku over every little embarrassment then either.

Re:Embarrassment

[invictusvoyd]

Embarrassing : Being forced to work for an employer who checks your facebook page or cares that you donâ(TM)t have one .

Re:Embarrassment

[cascadingstylesheet]

Are employers looking at Facebook also mostly a social thing? The problem isn't embarrasment, it's judgmental people with the power to affect your live.

Yeah, we'll get right on that. I'm sure that decision makers with no judgment will become a thing. Much better if they go by what you copied into your resume than by what you actually did in public.

Re:Embarrassment

[jareth-0205]

Are employers looking at Facebook also mostly a social thing?
The problem isn't embarrasment, it's judgmental people with the power to affect your live.

Yeah, we'll get right on that. I'm sure that decision makers with no judgment will become a thing. Much better if they go by what you copied into your resume than by what you actually did in public.

And this is why we have privacy. That people have disconnected lives where they are one person at work and another with their friends, is fundamental to actually being able to be yourself, to be a fully rounded person. If we start being terrified that everything we do in public will be available to anyone to judge out-of-context or through their own prejudices, you effectively give up your freedom and we are forced to regress to the lowest common denominator for behaviour. What appears on the internet is not just what you put there, it's what other people post.

What you present to the employer being separate from your personal life is actually a really important part of how we function as a society.

Re:Embarrassment

[dbIII]

Embarrassing : Being forced to work for an employer who checks your facebook page or cares that you donâ(TM)t have one .

It's going to be the norm in a few years instead of just an excuse for HR people caught wasting too much time on Facebook.

Re:Embarrassment

[trout007]

This will end once the boomers die off. Everyone has an embarrassing past. The problem is the Boomers that like to pretend their past was clean since there is no evidence and are quick to judge others. Once you can look up the HR persons trips to Cancun or your Boss's "experimental" stage we will all be on an even playing field.

Re:Embarrassment

[StikyPad]

The individual does not define embarrassment.

That's a bit neurotic. Who defines one's emotions if not the individual? I'm not embarrassed just because someone tells me to be.

Re:Embarrassment

[DNS-and-BIND]

I'm sorry but when your entire facebook feed consists of anti-Obama trolling, that isn't being judgmental. That's making a conscious decision you don't want horrid people like that working at your company.

Re:Embarrassment

[Bengie]

Only a transitional pain. Once everyone had immature dirt, no one person will stand out more than another.

Re:Embarrassment

[sjames]

Unless what you did in public was done as an employee, it really shouldn't impact your professional life. Unless, of course, you care to count that cookie you snitched when you were 5 as a crime for the purposes of that little checkbox on your application. And do we really want to hire you when we see that you once got into a slap fight over who had cooties?

Re:Embarrassment

[sjames]

You'll have to wait a little longer. Gen X grew up without the internet as well.

Re:Embarrassment

[traces8]

Considering these posts are an example of your decision making abilities, judgment and character I'd say it's useful information for employers. A good predictor of future behaviors is past behaviors. Posts about skipping work, stealing from previous employers, and other past employment is useful info for potential employers. So are posts about willingness to take on extra responsibility, actions that have resulted in positive outcomes for employers and examples of good decision making skills.

Re:Embarrassment

[Penguinisto]

The boomers have begun to retire... in droves.

Yeah, everyone has embarrassments in their past, but it's still no one's right to go combing through them. Most employers are smart enough to stick with criminal background checks at the most (because seriously, a conviction for embezzlement may be an embarrassment, but it's also something an accounting firm would want to know about before hiring someone...) I have never had an employer (or individual therein) demand to see my facebook page or try to friend me on it, and I doubt that I ever will. They don't have time for that (and seriously, with an uber-common real life name like mine, good luck sussing me out from the zillions of others).

Sibling is right though - GenX will be the last generation that had some semblance of privacy WRT online history.

Re:Embarrassment

[tompaulco]

I'm sorry but when your entire facebook feed consists of anti-Obama trolling, that isn't being judgmental. That's making a conscious decision you don't want horrid people like that working at your company.

I"m not sure I follow that reasoning. Plenty of businesses, especially small businesses don't like Obama because of his efforts to drive small business out of business.
Obama's approval rating is less than 50%, so the majority of people don't care for him. Do you really think it likely that we would refuse to hire 54% of the people in the country because they don't like Obama?

Re:Embarrassment

[kenai_alpenglow]

This. The anti-obama rants may be a plus when hiring comes around...

Re:Embarrassment

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I'm sorry but when your entire facebook feed consists of anti-Obama trolling, that isn't being judgmental. That's making a conscious decision you don't want horrid people like that working at your company.

But if this happened...

I'm sorry but when your entire facebook feed consists of pro-Obama trolling, that isn't being judgmental. That's making a conscious decision you don't want horrid people like that working at your company.

Methinks you would be all...

OMG! Congress should outlaw facebook post politics from business hiring procedures!

with self-righteous fury.

Re:Embarrassment

[Coren22]

Heck, his average rating for the whole presidency is only 47%, he isn't very well liked.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/116...

Now, if DNS-and-BIND had said racist rants, or sexist rants, sure, that makes sense.

Re:Embarrassment

[mi]

The problem isn't embarrassment, it's judgemental people with the power to affect your live.

Oh, thank you for identifying "the problem". For a while here, I thought it was the irresponsible statements and other behaviour of certain people. Turns out, it is the other people's opinion of same...

Re:Embarrassment

[KGIII]

I would agree that if you like to post pictures of yourself with sharpies up your ass that is none of your employer's business.

However if you are an asshole online you are probably just as much of an asshole in real life and your resume might not suggest that because, what the previous post was saying was, your resume was written by someone else.

I am an asshole you insensitive, dirty bag, cow-screwing, pig-dog, clod!

There are likely pictures of my penis online. I can not be certain. If there are? I am proud someone felt it was worthy the space to save it and even prouder that they felt it was worth sharing. Shit, just ask me and I will show you. I may show you even if you did not ask - depends on the circumstances and drugs/alcohol involved. The scary part is that I am running for state Senate.

Re:Embarrassment

[KGIII]

I do not quite fit in the boomer generation. I turned 18 in 1975. (Get off my lawn. No, really, you can chill on my lawn but it would be smarter to come inside where you're welcome and it is not raining.)

Anyhow, you're damned right I have an embarrassing past! I am pretty sure my penis was one of the first things uploaded to the internet. I drank for 40+ years. I used opiates - including IV use - for almost as long. I was a functioning addict, thank you much. Damned right, I have done some stupid shit.

If I did not have an embarrassing past, if I had not made mistakes, how would I learn what to do?

Re:Embarrassment

[david_thornley]

Except that not everyone has done something embarrassing. Some children get lucky, others don't get into that sort of trouble to begin with. If we select for people who never got into trouble as children, we're losing a lot of potential.

Re:Embarrassment

[david_thornley]

Decision-making ability, judgment, and character can change a lot between teenage years and mid-twenties. Teenager's brains are not fully developed, and tend to lack the sort of reasoned judgment we'd expect from an actual adult.

Re:Embarrassment

[tehcyder]

The internet has not fundamentally changed human nature. Privacy of some kind will always be needed, otherwise you will have a generation of howling lunatics, and then the human race will die off.

Re:Embarrassment

[tehcyder]

Only a transitional pain. Once everyone had immature dirt, no one person will stand out more than another.

That is such bullshit. There is, and always will be, a huge difference between someone who had a few ciders and threw up at a teenage party, and someone who raped and murdered his dog.

Or do you really think that with the effective abolition of privacy there will be no more crimes?

Re:Embarrassment

[tehcyder]

Considering these posts are an example of your decision making abilities, judgment and character I'd say it's useful information for employers. A good predictor of future behaviors is past behaviors. Posts about skipping work, stealing from previous employers, and other past employment is useful info for potential employers. So are posts about willingness to take on extra responsibility, actions that have resulted in positive outcomes for employers and examples of good decision making skills.

If I found that someone had been posting examples of their good decision making skills on Facebook, I would assume they are a creepy arse-licker and/or a liar.

Re:Embarrassment

[tehcyder]

The individual does not define embarrassment.

That's a bit neurotic. Who defines one's emotions if not the individual? I'm not embarrassed just because someone tells me to be.

Things like embarrassment and shame are social constructs. If you were alone on a desert island, you really wouldn't worry about how your hair or waistline looked.

Re:Embarrassment

[trout007]

But we X'ers are the meh generation.

the agenda

[Anonymous Coward]

iRights also wants children to be protected from illegal or distressing pages

This is the part that is the real reason. They will try to impose a government mandated filter on the Internet. Again. Give up Your rights, we are doing it for Your protection. Think about the Children! (TM)

Also, shouldn't Apple be really cross about the name?

Re:the agenda

[tehcyder]

iRights also wants children to be protected from illegal or distressing pages

This is the part that is the real reason. They will try to impose a government mandated filter on the Internet. Again. Give up Your rights, we are doing it for Your protection. Think about the Children! (TM)

Preventing children from accessing certain parts of the internet is no different morally than preventing them from buying alcohol, driving a car or serving in the armed forces.

It does not mean that "the government" also has to ban adults from those parts of the internet, any more than it stops adults from drinking, driving or dying for their country.

The practical problems associated with filtering the internet for children are obvious, but that doesn't mean it's inherently wrong or stupid. Obviously, anyone under 18 here will disagree.

Wrong age

[swillden]

Relatively little of what teens do is going to cause them problems in later life. It's what people do between about 18 and 25 that tends to screw them. Mainly because they're old enough to drink (without having to hide it) but not yet old enough to think (well).

Re:Wrong age

[ScentCone]

This. Nobody is an adult at 18. Not even close. Most people don't have their cognitive act together, and any sort of capacity for rational behavior (if they're ever going to get there) until, these days, they're the better part of 30.

But knowing to not shoot selfies of yourself being a total jackass is something that can make some sense a lot earlier than 18. If some 15 year old can know enough not to drop his pants in front of his grandmother or in front of his classroom at school, he already has what it takes to know not to do it online. He just has to be taught that. Which involves, you know, parents. Who give a damn about their kids' future.

Re:Wrong age

[Zontar The Mindless]

But knowing to not shoot selfies of yourself being a total jackass is something that can make some sense a lot earlier than 18. If some 15 year old can know enough not to drop his pants in front of his grandmother or in front of his classroom at school, he already has what it takes to know not to do it online.

Mod this up. (I've already posted in the thread, so I can't.)

Re:Wrong age

[invictusvoyd]

If some 15 year old can know enough not to drop his pants in front of his grandmother or in front of his classroom at school,

Why should anyone take this seriously? what needs more attention is bullying which makes kids violent ..

Re: Wrong age

[Anonymous Coward]

Speak for yourself. Anyone pushed enough fights back. When those that prefer peace (not bullies) finally lash out it is with with much greater ferocity and lack of control.

Re: Wrong age

[Anonymous Coward]

This. I did fight back and (unintentionally) broke the skull of my bully in front of the 20 other kids who weren't doing shit to protect me a few seconds before.

Re:Wrong age

[misexistentialist]

Most people don't have their cognitive act together, and any sort of capacity for rational behavior (if they're ever going to get there) until, these days, they're the better part of 30.

At which point cognitive decline due to aging is already measurable.

Re:Wrong age

[Drethon]

Parents showing responsibility? How can we expect this if their kids don't... er... hmm.

Re:Wrong age

[nult]

Agreed! Parents are lazy and at times expect the world to moderate their children ...

Re: Wrong age

[tompaulco]

Speak for yourself. Anyone pushed enough fights back. When those that prefer peace (not bullies) finally lash out it is with with much greater ferocity and lack of control.

Yes, but when you fight back against a bully, you are punished by the system as an example to others. When a bully constantly picks on you, the system looks the other way, sometimes actually chanting "zero tolerance policy" while they look the other way.

Re: Wrong age

[sjames]

And then THEY get punished while the bully plays poor me. These days, that punishment may include arrest and court appearances. That information will be 'out there' and will not likely mention the sore provocation over many months that lead to it.

Re: Wrong age

[sjames]

Sounds like a hell hole. I suspect we can do better if we adults can grow up and start acting like we claim we ought to.

Re:Wrong age

[ScentCone]

People getting married at 16 did so under the guidance of closely kept family - something that's far less common these days. When the culture was more agrarian and infant death rates were much higher, you started hatching out babies as early as possible while everyone involved is young and resilient. We now have a much, much lower rate of multi-generational households (when that was common, that 16 year old husband was very unlikely to be the one calling the shots about the family business, farm, finances, etc). We're also expecting young people today to be tuned into a LOT more information and complexity than their counterparts from a century ago.

Re:Wrong age

[tehcyder]

Relatively little of what teens do is going to cause them problems in later life. It's what people do between about 18 and 25 that tends to screw them. Mainly because they're old enough to drink (without having to hide it) but not yet old enough to think (well).

Newsflash: reaching 26 does not magically remove the power of alcohol to make you do out-of-character things.

Re: Wrong age

[tehcyder]

Bullying does not make kids violent: it makes them meek. Bullies are a small minority and, often, either tomorrow's Ruling Elite or its enforcers. The rest learns their place in the world: heads down, backs bowed.

No, victims of bullying often internalise the violence, and it shows itself in later life as relationship problems, addiction and so on.

Re: Wrong age

[tehcyder]

Speak for yourself. Anyone pushed enough fights back. When those that prefer peace (not bullies) finally lash out it is with with much greater ferocity and lack of control.

Yes, but when you fight back against a bully, you are punished by the system as an example to others. When a bully constantly picks on you, the system looks the other way, sometimes actually chanting "zero tolerance policy" while they look the other way.

Not where I live (UK). If anything, schools are over-sensitive about the whole subject and count as "bullying" things which would just have been considered unpleasantness when I was younger, such as name calling.

However, it is better to err in this direction than ignore actual physical bullying, as used to be the case.

Re:Wrong age

[swillden]

Duh. No one is claiming there's a bright line.

You Still Have To Live With Yourself

[zenlessyank]

So.... there is always that.

You can't take the pee out of the pool

[Dahamma]

Giving proper citation, my favorite quote on the topic, from News Radio:

Joe: You can’t take something off the Internet. It’s like taking pee out of a swimming pool.

Which seems surprising appropriate for kids doing stupid things...

Re:You can't take the pee out of the pool

[Dahamma]

No, the god will be whoever can manage to get News Radio on DVD/streaming services! I have been waiting for a decade now...

Re:You can't take the pee out of the pool

[Dahamma]

Oh, wait, it's on DVD. Now I want it on Netflix/Amazon/VUDU...

Re:You can't take the pee out of the pool

[nitehawk214]

You can dilute the pool to the point where it doesn't matter.

So to complete this analogy, simply release so much embarrassing stuff about so many people that stuff like this just blows over while the media finds another person to attack.

We keep history to learn

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm 19, and I have to say this is incredibly moronic. Granted, I've posted tons of embarrassing stuff when I was younger, but that's part of growing up. I learned not do that again and moved on. Just because you said something stupid once doesn't mean people get to remove archived internet events for you. I'm so sick of my worthless pussy generation, always being "triggered" or having their feelings hurt because they're not the center of attention. I mean holy fuck, most of us are in our late teens and early 20s. Grow the fuck up.

Another group that does not get it at all...

[gweihir]

They think making laws and demanding things changes reality. It does not. It can lead to people presenting themselves as complete idiots to the world though.

Really?

[hene]

Wow, these people really do not know how Internet works.

Life.

[MiggyMan]

This shit is all part of life, you grow up, you fuck up, you learn.

That includes posting stupid shit to the internet.

Senior Citizens

[Sooner Boomer]

The same rules should apply to old people. I'm getting cranky and I just don't give a fuck sometimes...

Re:Senior Citizens

[traces8]

Oh it does. There are a number of "old folks" that have been fired after stupid posts. Police and teachers are the leaders of the pack in this group.

Good luck with that

[Viol8]

"an effort to change social perspective seems to be the sane and more permanent thing to do ."

Tell us oh great social visionary, how do you plan on changing the social perspective of 7 billion people?

Re:Good luck with that

[invictusvoyd]

start with a 100 .These things are like a chain reaction. Remember the word facebook 10 years ago? .

Re:Good luck with that

[tompaulco]

The planet cannot support 7 billion humans

Sure it can. It just can't support them in the manner in which they are currently deployed. Many people are born every year in places that have no food and have no ability to grow food. Unfortunately, people in those areas aren't bothered by the issue and continue to have more children.

If the entire populations of India and China perished overnight it would be a net benefit to the planet.

That depends what you mean by net benefit. India and China on the whole produce more food than they need and send food and aid to Africa. If India and China were to be wiped out, the average amount of food per person in the world would go down.

Yay for the march of technology...

[Stolpskott]

For those of us who went through our teenage years before the internet, the records were mostly out of reach - parents pulling out embarrassing baby/child photos to show a girlfriend/boyfriend, childhood friends with unfortunately good memories recounting stories about embarrassing behaviour, tattoos that we regretted but could generally cover up, and for the more adventurous of us the juvenile criminal records that resulted from pranks or misbehaviour are the kinds of things we deal with.
The current generation are going through all of that while also having an almost uncontrollable urge to post every iota of their lives online. Somebody with the ability to step back and think "will I regret this tomorrow/next week/next year/at a job interview" would probably not do a lot of the things that end up being posted, but today's teenagers are no better at consequence analysis than we were when we were that age. The difference is that today the records are more permanent and more visible.

Personally, I do not believe that people should be able to airbrush their past to this degree, even though as adults we all do it up to a point - after all, rewriting a resumé so it is still basically true but puts you in a better light is a common tactic before applying for jobs, and keeping some of your more embarrassing secrets is natural - we all want people to see the good parts, and we want to hide the bad parts. That will be harder for teenagers in the digital world. But rather than allowing children to erase the past and thus escape the consequences of their actions, I would prefer to educate them about those consequences and how long they can go on for. It means they have to grow up a bit more quickly in some ways, but better that than to teach them that you can do bad or embarrassing shit and then rewrite history after the fact.

Re:Yay for the march of technology...

[Intrepid imaginaut]

But rather than allowing children to erase the past and thus escape the consequences of their actions, I would prefer to educate them about those consequences and how long they can go on for.

No. This is the same line of thinking that leads to people who commit often victimless crimes being unable to vote or get decent jobs ever again, every sentence becomes a life sentence.

What we're looking at here is the dark underbelly of ubiquitous connectivity and creative media access. For high minded folks it's a good thing, it lets them get their message out and expose problems, or share their work without having to doff their caps to gatekeepers. For the vast majority of humanity however it's a potential nightmare that could explode at any time. It's a complete surveillance society where the only justice is mob justice, and the witchhunters are waiting in the wings for any misstep.

People have committed suicide over stuff which prior to about ten years ago would have been forgotten in a few days. This is not acceptable.

Who will think of the children?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

It's all about the kids, right?

Oh wait - I think I took a cynicism tablet instead of the happy pill this morning. Bloody Abbott has been messing with the public health system again. He used to be funny until he pushed Costello out of the limelight.

Hope not.

[nospam007]

I'm against it.

Dumb little shits will be dumb little shits all their life, even if the evidence of their earlier misdeeds is erased.

Re:Hope not.

[dcw3]

Dumb little shits will be dumb little shits all their life

Thanks for proving that.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Viol8]

LOL! Spoken from a kiddy point of view or what :)

Believe it or not sonny, Facebook hasn't been around that long. Zuckerberg wasn't even born when I was 15 so the odds on there being anything online about me when I was a kid are pretty slim wouldn't you say?

And no, I didn't do anything embarrasing unless you think getting into fights, trying it on with girls and driving cars fast is embarrassing. But then you're obviously a millennial so who knows.

The three 5-star posts so far are sad

[WOOFYGOOFY]

I find the three 5 star posts in this thread (so far) sad.

The points come across as sanctimonious and the tone is scolding. Scolding to the kids for doing something the authors deem stupid; sanctimonious towards parents who apparently don't care about these stupid kids, or they would have raised them differently and therefore produced different outcomes.

I know the tech sections of the internet skew heavily towards very young, white males, and this may account for the high rating of these posts, but they all show a lack of insight into how humans life is actually lived and what the source of human development actually entails.

The implied requirement of these posts only has to be articulated to be dismissed- that you never do anything stupid, impulsive or otherwise compromising over the entire course of your life in the presence of other human beings (who we can now assume have cameras on thier phones and phones on their person). If you did, tough luck, you were probably old enough to know to not have done that (based on some nebulous theory harbored by the authors), yet you did it anyways.

It would be hard to formulate a more stifling atmosphere than the "wrong once, wrong forever" ethos which permeates these posts. Learning happens through exploring and testing limits imposed by society which come into conflict with the personal perceptions of the individual. That also happens to be how society progresses and the same kind of people who do one are likely later in their lives to be leading the other.

We need the trangressors, the limit testers, the irrational impulse followers, the people who value and trust their own (often mistaken) perceptions above the externally imposed voice of their parents and society because that is just the population which later invents, leads society forward, *thinks different*.

The punishment which society now can and according to these post's authors, should, impose for what were previously private acts of boundary testing by society's youngest members is insane. We're talking about people whose brains can be shown to be anatomically uniquely susceptible to impulsive decisions, which cannot work out the real consequences of their actions, cannot yet accurately model the minds of others or consider long term implications of their decisions.

Not coincidentally I see all of these limitations in these posts themselves .

The fantastical implied requirement embedded in these posts is that people stop going through a developmental stage of life and just get on to adulthood. This is actually how the world thought of children prior to the late 19th and 20th centuries; children were adults in miniature. I would refer you to the history of the 19th and 20th centuries to see the resultant handiwork of people who were actually raised under the influence of that factually incorrect theory.

They say we're are ony one generation away from barbarism, from regressing to previous states of societal ignorance and barbarity, one generation away from the triumph of folk theries of the world and human behavior over science. People aren't mentally ill, they're willfully cretinous. People lives aren't ruined and they aren't driven into destitution through labor-law-free working environments, they simply lack industry. Young people aren't qualitatively different in their reasoning and cognition from adults, they just know fewer facts.

If it were up to me, every high schooler would have to have three semesters of developmental psychology in order to graduate. The first concern society has with education has to be to ensure the non-regression of its members.

To address just one poster's point directly, yes, people know not to drop their pants at high school graduation ceremony. But you can't use your intuition and "common sense" to then relatively score any potential human behaviour in any potential social situation as either more or less developmentally advanced than that pants dropping one. You can't blithely assign a developmental score and a

Re:The three 5-star posts so far are sad

[andrewbaldwin]

If only I had mod points right now ....

Making mistakes is part of the human development process. Punishing every action for now and evermore may lead to well disciplined drones but won't help society as a whole. Do we want 100% conformity to some sort of norm with nobody pushing boundaries -- or one where the stretching of possibilities opens up whole new opportunities?

If every activity is going to be monitored, recorded and analysed for ever more [as the current trends in online operations are going] and any misdemeanour at any age punished forever (through job blocking or society's opprobrium and ostracising) then we'll lose out on our future Mozarts, Brunels...etc.

Just to expose the hypocrisy of some of the loudest voices around, consider the recent fuss about the queen's home movies showing a nazi* salute at an early age.

Establishment leaning media [who are pushing for all sorts of censorship] are falling all over themselves with (a) excuses [she was only a child, didn't realise ...] and (b) outrage [how dare this be dragged up to embarrass her....].

Yet these very same sources hold nothing back when digging up the dirt and tearing into others.

This would be bad enough - yet it is the very same people who are pushing for these changes.

Similarly, it seems OK for employers to view activities at a young, impressionable age when we all do stupid things as set in concrete for life - yet we're asked to apply different standards for the rich and powerful (eg bankers) or those with guaranteed job security and a well paid (taxpayer funded) lifestyle.

*can I claim a vicarious Godwin ? :-)

Re:The three 5-star posts so far are sad

[dcw3]

If we had a post of the month award, I'd be voting for this one.

Re:The three 5-star posts so far are sad

[sjames]

Mod this up!

If I had to name the modern trends that need to go away it would be the cultivation of fear and the taste for eternal punishment for all.

18 years???

[codeButcher]

I don't know. Where I live, 18 year olds are pretty much still stupid kids. They may have legal majority status, allowing them to vote, sign contracts, drive, drink and smoke, but many still have some years of their most stupid antics and moronic postings ahead of them. More often than not precisely because they are now allowed to legally drink alcohol and not listen to their parents any more.

Meanwhile...

[ledow]

This UK citizen would rather under-18's didn't do shit and/or post about it online such that might later affect their lives.

Take some fucking responsibility for yourself from about the age of 10/11, as the law states, and if you cock up, learn to live with the consequences.

Sure, we'd all like a time machine that could erase certain mistakes but why the hell should we legislate some cyber-time-machine that actually removes indiscretions posted publicly?

Not only that, it just won't work. You can't just erase facts forever. And if you could, the infrastructure capable of doing that is more open to misuse from adults than anything else I can think of. I bet there are certain UK politicians at the moment that would like to conveniently forget paedophiles in the Houses of Parliament, not to mention the last drug-taking, prostitute-hiring British peer in charge of parliamentary ethics.

How about 37 year-olds ?

[quenda]

... we really want be able to delete every stupid thing that happened before we were 30. Especially those political posts.

Re:How about 37 year-olds ?

[tehcyder]

... we really want be able to delete every stupid thing that happened before we were 30. Especially those political posts.

Yeah, it's really embarrassing when people find out you voted for George W Bush and weren't receiving treatment for a mental illness at the time..

Problem will go away soon

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Once these idiotic teens who post embarrassing things on the net reach the age and station where they are the hiring managers they would be more forgiving of the applicants with embarrassing on line history.

It is only in the interregnum it is an issue.

Re:Problem will go away soon

[tehcyder]

Once these idiotic teens who post embarrassing things on the net reach the age and station where they are the hiring managers they would be more forgiving of the applicants with embarrassing on line history.

It is only in the interregnum it is an issue.

That's not how the world works.

People in power are most certainly not going to give up all their privacy in the future.

Re:Also, I have an idea: make murder illegal!

[Anonymous Coward]

> After they pass this law, they should also make it illegal to commit murder.

FYI, there was no federal law whatsoever against murder in the USA, until after 1955. That year a southern KKK mob lynched a teenager negro for whistling at a white babe in the street, but the state refused to charge the perpetrators with murder or any other crime. The FBI eventually charged the perps with violating the victim's civil rights and a federal muder statue (with capital punishment on the book) was instituted by circa 1962. This event was a turning point in the US coloured rights movement.

Know what you're doing

[Karmashock]

Only post what you're okay with people seeing and if you're posting something you don't want seen... then work under false names.

My social networking nonsense is compartmentalized. My names never link back to a person unless I want them to... and then I make a point of not doing anything on line with those identities that will attract controversy.

Re:Know what you're doing

[Karmashock]

Oh look, an AC troll/sockpuppet making a shitty post about someone that actually logs in... and what is this? He's criticizing someone else's record? Does he know that that is unbe-fucking-lievably hypocritical given that he's giving no one else an ability to examine his own record?

Surely he must know that... right?

Well, it's probably not important since we can likely assume that all he does is shit post about other people or do various trollish sockpuppity things on the forums.

What's so fucking funny about you retards is that you don't seem to get that every time you shit post me as an AC at this point you merely validate my sig. I recongize you half the time as your named persona. You'll do stupid shit like AC shit post me in some forgotten thread where it is just me and some other douchbag going back and forth. Not realizing that there is no one reading that crap at that point but the other guy and therefore... I know who you fucking are in that case.

Cowards, liars, and shitheads.

In the words of Bill Hicks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Yeah, right.

[dbIII]

I didn't do anything embarrasing unless you think getting into fights

Just the sort of thing a potential employer would throw your resume out for. Didn't you hear about the teacher that was sacked over a "drunken pirate" photo?

Re:We keep history to learn

[Demonoid-Penguin]

I'm 19, and I have to say this is incredibly moronic. Granted, I've posted tons of embarrassing stuff when I was younger, but that's part of growing up. I learned not do that again and moved on. Just because you said something stupid once doesn't mean people get to remove archived internet events for you. I'm so sick of my worthless pussy generation, always being "triggered" or having their feelings hurt because they're not the center of attention. I mean holy fuck, most of us are in our late teens and early 20s. Grow the fuck up. .

Agreed. Just goes to show wisdom isn't soley the result of age (it sure isn't an automatic result)

I'm a lot older. I did and thought a lot of things things in the past that I'm not proud of. Wiping out the evidence doesn't change the fact they happened. Embarrassment is awareness of that. I learned from the embarrassment - that I am privately proud of

If people want to judge me by past history - that's their right (if they're over 30 they deserve the opinions they hold), it doesn't mean it's right, or it's a reliable indicator of how I act and think now. All it says is that their opinions say nothing about me and speak volumes about them. If someone thinks others can't learn from their mistakes they're people I wouldn't trust to run a bath. Not that there isn't people who've never fucked up - just that I have more respect for people that have, and have learnt from it than I have for those that have never been tested.

Where do we stop when we define "embarrassing"? If the internet had been around then should I demand pictures of me wearing "V-knee" jeans, or flares, and platform shoes be deleted? If that was the case I'd be embarrassed at the shallowness behind it. There's always going to be people who think I'm a dickhead, or "uncool". Trying to change that is like pissing in the wind and trying to stay dry.

Maybe people who judge us are right, maybe they're wrong - IMO the important question is "who's opinion do I make myself a prisoner of"?. Thanks for the offer [insert name here] but I'll pick my own peers.

When it comes to employers, or clients, or partners and friends it's not substantially different. e.g. should my employer's/client's opinion of the past contents or existence of my Fffacebook/Google+/MySpace page bother me? Yes. It allows me to determine whether my investment of time is a waste. If they want to see lots of Ffffacebook ffffriends in my profile I doubt they're likely to be in business for very long, pay me a fair share of my earnings, or recognise my potential. Friends are no different (the John West principle - the friends you get are limited by the friends you don't reject).

Partners? They'll figure you out after a while (if they can't it doesn't say much about what makes you happy), good luck sleeping well if there's a big difference between who you are and who you pretend to be. If you think it's worth bullshitting for a short term gain you may have made a poor investment decision (and wish you could edit out that history later).

Re:Yeah, right.

[Ol Olsoc]

LOL! Spoken from a kiddy point of view or what :)

LOL? Oy...

And no, I didn't do anything embarrasing unless you think getting into fights, trying it on with girls and driving cars fast is embarrassing. But then you're obviously a millennial so who knows.

I read that as violent tendencies plus assault, possible attempted rape, and a reckless disregard for the law in general.

Report to the nearest incarceration facility.

But all joking aside, when these folk are your age, they'll probably say the same thing about showing their junk on teh netz. Just being on the internet at all exposes a whole lot about a person, you and I included. Kid's who get in fights in school aren't just given suspensions, they are some times arrested, and the police are almost always involved. Teenage sex can be a real minefield, and your driving is related to more restrictive licenising for teenagers. So your past wouldn't be quite as innocuous as you think it is.

Code of Conducts.

[0100010001010011]

Now do you see why Randi Harper and her "Code of Conducts" aren't conducive to actually helping anyone? I'm in my 30s, contributing member of society. I have a job, a kid, a wife. But god save me if shit I said when I was 14 on IRC was published. I was 14. I couldn't imagine where I'd be if my life was ruined by dogpiling for some stupid tweet I made.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04...

http://www.npr.org/2015/03/31/...

http://www.npr.org/2015/04/01/...

Thankfully I found Slashdot instead of 4Chan (or what ever the equivalent was back then). I learned to type such that I got +5 "Informative" from adults. Rather than running around calling each other faggots. When I posted on Usenet I used my real name and knew that people could find me with that. I created a new account on most sites that couldn't be linked to anything else (0100010001010011 for Slashdot).

I've noticed that the 20 year olds talk different depending on where they 'grew up' on the internet. If you think that adults run around calling each other Faggot and think that's "just boy talk" there's a good chance you were on 4Chan. I'm sure there are 20 year olds that have been on Slashdot since they could and I wouldn't know them any different than my peers in my 30s or the guys I looked up to that are now in their 40s. Because they learned to talk like adults.

It's why losing Slashdot is really a shame. I don't even know where 16 year old me would go these days. FreeBSD used to be one of the last 'pure' places I could go where I was judged by 1 thing, my code. I couldn't imagine the shitstorm if someone (Randi Harper) took some inside joke of a tweet to friends, twisted it and dog piled her followers on me to kick me out.

Good Luck with that

[bbsguru]

"iRights also wants children to be [...] able to make informed and conscious choices."
Seriously?

And then what, magically lose that ability at age 18 like the rest of the plods online?

Actions. Have. Consequences.
A two year old can learn that easily, if the consequences are proximate to the cause.
How about making every post made by a 'child' immediately and publicly available? At least there would be
a clear result from postings, instead of the illusion of privacy that seems to promote irresponsible online behaviour.

What we have vs. what we want

[oneandoneis2]

A conversation about the internet that is long, long overdue: Is what we *have* what we *want*, and if not, what can be done about it?

What we HAVE is a global network that will never, ever let you forget that silly thing you did whilst young and drunk that everyone thought was so hilarious at the time.

Is that really what we want?

Something as simple as dropping obscure older material down the search rankings would have a whole bunch of potentially nice effects. It would make the embarassments of your past harder to find. It would make shitty documentation for older programming languages to finally get superceded by the more modern stuff (if you've never encountered some novice following "best practice" from a document that was written when CGI ruled the web, I envy you). It would leave the content as available as ever, but drop the older and largely less-relevant stuff out of circulation.

The instant flood of responses being trotted out here along the lines of "Teh internet nevar forgets! n00b! l0l!!" are a sad reflection of how little thought people want to give a genuinely interesting question: Is the internet that's evolved over the past few decades really as good as it can be? And I'll be honest, if you really can't think of a single thing that could be done to improve it, I submit you're too ignorant to have an opinion on the subject.

So if we assume that some changes *could* make it better.. what's your proposal for deciding what those changes are, and how they should be made? Right now, the only mechanism going seems to be not-very-well-informed politicians proposing laws and waiting for them to be either passed or laughed down.

If you've got some ingenious way of working out how to make things better, start talking about it. Otherwise, maybe just sit down and shut up whilst other people try.

Re:What we have vs. what we want

[Kjella]

A conversation about the internet that is long, long overdue: Is what we *have* what we *want*, and if not, what can be done about it? What we HAVE is a global network that will never, ever let you forget that silly thing you did whilst young and drunk that everyone thought was so hilarious at the time. Is that really what we want?

Maybe not. But it's kinda meaningless to quibble about the negative side effects when it's obvious the positive effects are so huge there's no way we'll give up on it, nobody likes drive-by shooting but it's obvious we're not going to give up cars. Yes, we would like a free global information-sharing network.

Re:What we have vs. what we want

[tehcyder]

A conversation about the internet that is long, long overdue: Is what we *have* what we *want*, and if not, what can be done about it? What we HAVE is a global network that will never, ever let you forget that silly thing you did whilst young and drunk that everyone thought was so hilarious at the time. Is that really what we want?

Maybe not. But it's kinda meaningless to quibble about the negative side effects when it's obvious the positive effects are so huge there's no way we'll give up on it, nobody likes drive-by shooting but it's obvious we're not going to give up cars. Yes, we would like a free global information-sharing network.

The internet is not some version of an omnipotent God that we are forced to worship. Humans can do what they want with it, including turning part or all of it off.

Re: Yes.

[Bing Tsher E]

The assets of the company that goes out of business owing money are seized and if possible monetized to realize value for their creditors. This includes IP like corporate records which can include email.

In Theory

[prefec2]

In theory it is a good thing that everything you do online stays online forever. Including all the stupid posts, butt photos, kisses, etc. This, as some think also on /., will help you to "grow up faster", implying that learning how to behave in public has something to do with growing up (yes it is a small, but not insignificant part). As we all do and did a lot of stupid things in our life the remaining content will just illustrate the process of becoming an adult. And we all know that and therefore we do not insult anyone with their old imagery and postings. NOT.

The truth is that we are in total not that open, which means that we do insult people with their past. We are cruel, we try to trick each other, and we cheat. And the failures of other always account for more than our own failures. In the old offline world, we had therefore different kinds of public. We had friends and talked with them and the rubbish we said was more or less forgotten next morning. We have a different personality in a business context, on holidays, at home, and when visiting a theater. And these are often even disjunct. Online all these worlds can merge. My political me and my business me are visible to everyone or at least not only to those I told it. If you are on twitter it is public to all. If you do it on Facebook it might only be visible to your "friends" but in addition it is visible to Facebook and everyone they sell your data to.

So in the end it must be possible to restrain information so that only a few people might be able to see your data. And that must be guaranteed. It must further be enforced that now company can force you to open up the data. However, this is hard to realizes, as they always can ask you to give the data willingly and if you do not, they do not hire you. Officially, they will tell something else.

The idea of the UK is not sufficient and it does not address the real problem, as it only helps you to erase data you know of. Not all the data that might be out there.

What happens on X...

[John Allsup]

'What happens on tour, stays on tour' is a well known saying. This is what these campaigners desire for minors (that is, what happens online for minors disappears when they become adults.)

'What happens on the internet, stays on the internet' is the practical reality. There will need to be some kind of enforceable government certification of social medias which will do such deletion, and a means to prevent other sites getting hold of content. Can't see that happening anytime soon.

So, do stupid shit until 18?

[the_B0fh]

And then, it's all cleared up? Fun.

yet another "right"

[fche]

This sort of thing is a natural progression of labeling every little benefit or service or obligation or arrangement a "right". No.

A "right" is something that others' actions may not infringe - something that if they do, you can defend yourself and/or the state will defend you from. It is actionable.

Contrasted to that, a "right to water" or "right to health" or "right to happiness" or "right to have data edited/erased" is a putative obligation upon others to do something for you. That's not a "right".

Re:yet another "right"

[nomadic]

They're both types of rights; negative rights and positive rights.

Re:yet another "right"

[fche]

The so-called "positive" ones are feel-good fiction. They are not actionable.

Re:yet another "right"

[nomadic]

How do you mean "actionable"? They're certainly legally actionable; the best example would be the right to counsel, where the government is obligated to pay for a lawyer for you if you cannot afford one.

Re:yet another "right"

[fche]

"government is obligated to pay for a lawyer for you if you cannot afford one"

That is an interesting edge case, in that it represents a defence against the state already attacking the individual. Lest you find the TV scenes too compelling, almost certainly this government-provided-lawyer is available to only some people, and only for some cases. So no ... I'd call it more of a procedural benefit than a "right".

Can you imagine normal civil rights working that way? "Sir, sorry, you're too wealthy to exercise free speech right here.".

Re:yet another "right"

[nomadic]

Well you shouldn't just re-define positive rights away then argue they never existed in the first place. As another example, children in the US under a certain age have a right to education, and it's certainly actionable in the sense that they can sue the government to provide it if necessary. Other countries have even more actionable positive rights.

Re:yet another "right"

[fche]

"children in the US under a certain age have a right to education, and it's certainly actionable in the sense that they can sue the government to provide it if necessary"

That's not a right. That is a government benefit program provided, quality-controlled (?), or even discontinued at its pleasure.

Extend this....

[mark-t]

... are they suggesting it should eventually become illegal for people to simply *remember* anything embarrassing that somebody else did when they were kids?

That'd really be a downer for "open mike" at weddings, where opportunities to embarrass the bride and groom abound.

Re:Right to Hate

[tompaulco]

Yay. The right to be as big an ass as you want before you turn 18, because there's no repercussion.

Yes, just like people did before the internet. Oh, wait, no, they didn't.

And I want prezzydent Obama to buy me a ponycorn..

[DoctorBonzo]

... that's half pony, half unicorn.

Re:Why only at 18?

[tompaulco]

How about everyone getting the right to retract anything embarrassing every birthday?

This is what I came here to say. Social Media sites should just allow you to retract posts at any time for any or no reason. I am not sure why so many people are so violently against something which could not possibly harm them in any way. The only thing i can think is that they are all jackbooted nazi thugs that think they have the right to know every private deal of everybody else's lives.

If I could abort child, I can do ANYTHING

[mi]

there may be some issues there for good reason

If we, as a society, trust parents with the decision to abort their children before birth, what possible "good reason" can there be for us to intervene in the decision to let them wonder in the park until dinner after the umbilical cord is cut?

Re:If I could abort child, I can do ANYTHING

[Coren22]

I don't agree with the murder of unborn children either.

A 6 year old girl isn't really terribly safe and would not be able to fight off a kidnapper, that is all I was saying. I am not trying to claim that it is always true that letting her wander the neighborhood on her own is bad. I think that a mile or so hike from the park may be a bit much for a kid of her age though as well.

Re:If I could abort child, I can do ANYTHING

[Ivoch]

A 6 year old girl isn't really terribly safe and would not be able to fight off a kidnapper

As opposed to a 6 year old boy?

Re:If I could abort child, I can do ANYTHING

[Coren22]

I can't find any statistics to back it, but it would be my assumption that girls are more likely to be abducted than boys. Searching for "kidnapping statistics by sex" picks up a confluence of kidnapping and sex offenders lists, not the sex of the victim. This could be a failing in my choice of terms though.

Re:If I could abort child, I can do ANYTHING

[Coren22]

Here is some statistics that kind of make the point I was making:

http://www.f-4-c.org/statistic...

46% of human trafficking is about sex slavery, as that is mostly women, it has to skew the figures.

Re:If I could abort child, I can do ANYTHING

[mi]

I don't agree with the murder of unborn children either.

Well, you may not, but the country's laws see nothing wrong with it — and it certainly is not considered "murder". And yet, what you do with that same child only a few years after he is born, is suddenly a matter of police concern. That's the inconsistency — in the general thinking, not yours — of which I'm trying to raise awareness here.

I am not trying to claim [...] I think

Wouldn't it be nice, if people applied their opinions on rearing children to their own children only?

Re:If I could abort child, I can do ANYTHING

[AthanasiusKircher]

A 6 year old girl isn't really terribly safe and would not be able to fight off a kidnapper, that is all I was saying.

Neither could most 6-year-old boys... or 10-year-old girls. Or boys. And even many teenage girls would have difficulty fighting off a dedicated kidnapper.

But all of that is a bit irrelevant, because what really needs to be considered here is prevalence of stranger kidnappings... which is ridiculously low. Something like 0.01% of all kids reported missing are abducted and murdered by strangers. Something less than 1% of all kids who are actually abducted (as opposed to reported missing because they got lost or ran away or whatever) are abducted by strangers.

We're talking about ~100 kids per year in the U.S. who are abducted and killed. And the majority of those kids are abducted and killed by family members or other people they know well, not be random strangers. (Most kids abducted by a stranger are returned relatively unharmed.) Am I saying we shouldn't be concerned about it? Of course we should be concerned about it. But the risks are blown completely out of proportion.

Kids are about 50 times more likely to be killed in a motor vehicle than by an abductor. Kids are about 10 times more likely to drown or suffocate, 8 times more likely to take poison accidentally, 4 times more likely to die in a fire, etc., etc.

You're vastly more likely to cause your child to die because you got into a motor vehicle accident while not paying attention (or didn't get enough sleep, or were distracted by a phone or texting or whatever) than you are by letting them wander the streets alone.

And even if you are worried about your kid getting abducted and abused or killed, you should be MUCH more worried about the kid's uncle or brother or father or teacher than some random stranger grabbing them off the street.

If you aren't supervising your kids around people they know out of fear of abuse and abduction (where the VAST majority of abuse occurs), worrying about random strangers shouldn't be on your list.

I am not trying to claim that it is always true that letting her wander the neighborhood on her own is bad. I think that a mile or so hike from the park may be a bit much for a kid of her age though as well.

It's much more likely that a child of that age will encounter some other random problem -- accidental injury, getting lost, etc. -- than being kidnapped. Those are the primary fears parents should be evaluating for kids. All kids are different, and parents should pay use judgment to determine when kids are ready to be out alone. I've read stories of police questioning parents for letting a 6-year-old play alone in his own fenced-in backyard!

Anyhow, I don't know the details of the case you're discussing or the maturity of the kid in question. Regardless, though, we should be concerned about this kid because young kids often need supervision in general -- not because of some (likely non-existent) "bad guy" grabbing her on the street.

Child abduction rates in the U.S. have been declining steadily for at least 40 years. Kids are safer than ever. The hysteria needs to stop.

Re:If I could abort child, I can do ANYTHING

[Coren22]

Have I said anything to this child's parents or the state about my opinions? I didn't tell you or them how to raise your kids, I talked about my personal opinion of the incident, which was meant as an aside to the statement of

The parents are mostly winning after two times having their kids taken away.

The parents are winning their case against the police and CPS, what more do you want? I am saying I don't agree with the way they are raising their kids, but I'm not the one calling the police on a young child walking the streets without supervision (hint, I live at least an hour from where this is all going down, not next door).

Re:If I could abort child, I can do ANYTHING

[Coren22]

http://www.washingtontimes.com...

I am not in any way saying that CPS is right in this case, I am saying that I wouldn't let a 6 year old under my care do the same, as I don't believe a 6 year old can be mature enough. I don't make decisions for this case, and don't believe the state should be making any decisions in this case as it isn't their business unless there is a true case of neglect.

Re:If I could abort child, I can do ANYTHING

[david_thornley]

What I want is the kids not being removed from their family twice for no good reason (like allowing stuff that was perfectly standard when I was a kid). That's going to traumatize the kids. Kids are resilient, but it's best not to disrupt their lives like that arbitrarily.

Re:If I could abort child, I can do ANYTHING

[Coren22]

I agree, but it is what is required of the police and CPS. When they receive a report, they have to remove the kids while they investigate to determine if injury is being done to the children. This happened because of lawsuits where people were saying "you received reports of this abuse, but you didn't remove the kids", well now they are forced to remove them.

Re:If I could abort child, I can do ANYTHING

[david_thornley]

What's the harm of sending them in to buy booze and smokes? Letting them partake would be harmful, and just smoking around them has proven to be harmful, but just buying them? If you're going to take kids away from their parents I want good solid reasons why the behavior is harming the kids.

Information wants to be free (Re:Embarrassment)

[mi]

And this is why we have privacy. That people have disconnected lives where they are one person at work and another with their friends

If, for whatever reasons, an employer wants to know, what sort of a person you are with your friends — and they all will, once the positions they are considering you for reach a certain height, they'll find out. With private investigators, if need be.

What you present to the employer being separate from your personal life is actually a really important part of how we function as a society.

Is it? How so? Can you cite any studies showing usefulness of such separation? Or how this separation changed over the years — for the betterment of society, or otherwise?

Re:Information wants to be free (Re:Embarrassment)

[jareth-0205]

If, for whatever reasons, an employer wants to know, what sort of a person you are with your friends — and they all will, once the positions they are considering you for reach a certain height, they'll find out. With private investigators, if need be.

And that makes it OK?

What you present to the employer being separate from your personal life is actually a really important part of how we function as a society.

Is it? How so? Can you cite any studies showing usefulness of such separation? Or how this separation changed over the years — for the betterment of society, or otherwise?

Well clearly I'm not going to have such studies to hand, not sure how you would study such a thing, but this one touches on similar subjects showing how there is inbuilt racism / nationalism in CV selection. That sort of problem is only going to get worse with the more information available.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ru...

Re:Information wants to be free (Re:Embarrassment)

[mi]

And that makes it OK?

I see nothing wrong with it, actually. People want — and have a perfect right — to know, who they are about to trust with powers over them and/or their businesses. And the higher the position, the greater the powers and, consequently, the greater the extent people might go in their investigations.

The "opposition research" is just another facet of this. If it is legitimate for all of us to study, how Donald Trump parted with his ex-wide 30 years ago before we hire him, it is certainly legitimate for a would-be employer to check criminal history of a candidate, or inquire, whether he has done something, which may betray certain things about his character or judgement. Did he torture animals? Is he prone to binge-drinking? Has he burned the national flag? Is he a racist, sexist, or communist?

So long as private employers' hiring decisions remain their own, they ought to remain free to base them on whatever considerations they please — with the specific (if regrettable) restrictions imposed by the law, of course.

Well clearly I'm not going to have such studies to hand, not sure how you would study such a thing

Well, you made a wide-reaching statement about a certain fact. If you can not cite anything to confirm the fact, your statement remains unsubstantiated and the "fact" — highly suspect.

there is inbuilt racism / nationalism in CV selection

I can believe that — and in my not-so-humble opinion, those concerns ought to remain up to the employer as well. Both from the principled standpoint — being free must imply freedom to be wrong, as well as practical — the war on thought-crimes, waged in this country since the 1960-ies, is even less winnable than the coterminous war on drugs.

Re:Information wants to be free (Re:Embarrassment)

[tehcyder]

If, for whatever reasons, an employer wants to know, what sort of a person you are with your friends — and they all will, once the positions they are considering you for reach a certain height, they'll find out. With private investigators, if need be.

Apart from people requiring high level security vetting, I think this is simply being paranoid.

Admittedly I have not reached any sort of "height" but I've never worked anywhere where the employers cared a fig about the private lives of their employees (as long as they didn't become crack addicts and regularly not turn up for work or something).

Why just online?

[AnotherBlackHat]

I'd like to delete everything about my prior-to-18 life, including yearbook photos I didn't want taken in the first place.

Instead of removing stuff from the internet, how about giving people a new identity when they come of age?
Let them pick a new name, issue a new drivers license/id card, SS number, etc.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

You can't legislate stupid and you can't revise

[blang]

Going back and changing the past never really worked.
Those doing that are called revisionists, and are generally vilified as whacked out nazis, which they generally are.
And those who have tried time travel know that rule number one, is don't change anything, because it can completely mess up the present (past future).

Besides that, once you send something out on the internet, it is FOREVER, no matter what the law says. A picture, an article, a saying, a clip - it could go out to millions of users, and many of those again likely to hoard information. Storage density and capacity is increasing exponentially, much faster than the population, so less and less will be thrown away. I am sure some folks will not only keep track of where they have browsed but also store all content they have ever accessed. If it taken down from public web sites, it will live on in underground web sites, it will circulate in chain emails, people will talk about it. If you are lucky, the story, film clip or picture was of so little interest, that only someone explicitly looking for it, such as a future employer would ever go looking for it. If these cases go though court, when for example an internet provider refuses to comply with the request, you can be assured that there will also be a small cottage industry of folks that aggressively collect exactly the kind of information you want to hide, trolling court records for targets. They will resell to private detectives, potential employers doing background checks etc. So in effect, trying to erase the info will have the opposite effect, the info will be marked as valuable, and indexed and made available to nobody, except exactly the people you wanted to hide it from. You would have been better off hoping for th e company storing the content to go bankrupt one day, or discontinuing the picture hosting service.

Re:Also, I have an idea: make murder illegal!

[steveha]

Either nobody likes my sense of humor or whoosh. Or both I guess.

I'll just spell it out:

After they pass this law, they should also make it illegal to commit murder. Think of all the lives that will be saved when murders stop happening!

Translation: you can pass a law banning something, but the law can't magically remove that something from the world. Murder is already illegal yet we still have murders. If a law is passed requiring web sites to memory-hole things that under-18 people posted when those people turn 18, that doesn't mean that the memory-holed things will be gone from the Internet.

The Internet is forever. Once something has been posted, it's not possible to undo that.

Also, they should totally add Barbara Streisand to the law.

For those of you who didn't click the link, this was a reference to the "Streisand Effect", where demanding that something be removed from the Internet results in more attention and fame for the removed materials. Nobody really cared about the photo of Streisand's house until she tried to have the photo suppressed; after she tried that, hundreds of thousands of people looked at the photo.

Thus, not only is it impossible to remove things from the Internet, but the attempt is likely to backfire and make things worse.

P.S. Slashdot needs a "-1, Not funny" moderation. I presume that's what the "overrated" meant on my post.

But any embarassing data after age 18

[Snufu]

should haunt you in perpetuity?

Re:But any embarassing data after age 18

[tehcyder]

It wouldn't be that difficult to require Facebook to delete stuff at your request. There's not a lot you can do to stop it being copied, but that's not really going to affect most people's postings, which will just sit on Facebook's servers for ever.

Remove the stigma.

[GrantRobertson]

Everyone knows you will NEVER be able to remove all copies of anything from The Internet. Britain's and Americans just need to get over their insane habit of stigmatizing normal human behavior.

Re:Remove the stigma.

[tehcyder]

Everyone knows you will NEVER be able to remove all copies of anything from The Internet. Britain's and Americans just need to get over their insane habit of stigmatizing normal human behavior.

I think you are assuming we're just talking about topless selfies or people getting drunk. There are plenty of other things people can publish as teenagers which are genuinely going to come back to haunt them, for example a homophobic, sexist or racist rant.

Lots of teenagers like saying shit because they think it's shocking, without realising the impact if adults (such as their friends later in life) read it.

Re: Remove the stigma.

[GrantRobertson]

Good point.

So, I guess we need to do both.

The Internet is Public

[The-Ixian]

Instead of making laws to allow deletion, how about instilling the idea that anything you post to the Internet, no matter what the privacy policies say, is publicly accessible.

The whole point of the Internet is to share information with others.

An even better law

[TsuruchiBrian]

The law could require not to hold anything a pre-18 year old says online against them. This includes mocking and laughing at those comments, or thinking someone is stupid, or thinking they are bad person, etc. In essence, if you don't have something nice to think about those comments, then you would be required to not think about them at all and act as if the comments were never made.

This law should also be about as enforceable as the one described in the article.

Mark Zuckerberg couldn't get an ordinary job today

[knorthern knight]

> My boss was pissed that I don't have one... He asked,
> why in the hell don't you use Facebook?

You're in HR, interviewing a job applicant. Would you hire somebody who once offered his company's personal client information to a friend? And called his customers dumb? What if he said it was "a youthful indiscretion"? Like the following?

http://www.businessinsider.com...

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuck: Just ask.

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: I don't know why.

Zuck: They "trust me"

Zuck: Dumb fucks.

Re:Yeah, right.

[dbIII]

He was sacked because a person with power decided to sack him. If this is the excuse given so be it. But he was not sacked over a photo.

He was sacked? You have no idea what I'm writing about do you.

Re:Also, I have an idea: make murder illegal!

[tehcyder]

you can pass a law banning something, but the law can't magically remove that something from the world. Murder is already illegal yet we still have murders.

Yes, but we have far fewer murders than if you were allowed to kill anyone you disliked with no recompense.

If you allowed people to delete their old Facebook messages (etc) there would be far fewer examples of embarrassing old information turning up.

Obviously, it wouldn't make it impossible to find stuff, because anything can be copied and saved somewhere else, but in the vast majority of cases your teenage Facebook post about how you want to make the sex with Justin Bieber won't be saved anywhere except on Facebook's servers.

Re:As usual

[tehcyder]

It is easy to put others to work for "free" with the power of the legislator pen. Being more practical, good look in enforcing that all over the world, and to erase things from pages that the owners or companies no longer exist, and somewhat survive in dormant accounts. Or in bit torrents of defunct hosting sites... Or some photo turned viral, and in the inbox and backups of millions of people. Legislator truly do not understand the Internet. What next, besides blacklists the UK will implement image blacklist based on signatures of things you do not want people to see? What comes ahead them, middle-in-the-man wide country config to open the all-widespread SSL sites? Good luck.

The point is, if you can't find it on a google search, it's effectively not there. So as long as you can get it deleted from the obvious places (Facebook, Twitter) you're probably safe.

Of course, if you're an attractive girl with a nude selfie, it's going to be in a lot more different places than a drunken racist Facebook post.

But a law that is not 100% effective is (potentially) still better than no law at all.

Re:Classic Nanny State drivel

[tehcyder]

"We shouldn't be held accountable for our actions because reasons!!! Unfair!"

I assume you'd be happy for your juvenile crime record, bank and credit card statements and medical records to be available online because you've got nothing to hide? Right?

Privacy

[tehcyder]

It's really odd how all the people here who complain about government snooping and interfering in their lives, and how there is an absolute right to privacy, seem perfectly fine with abandoning even the possibility of future privacy because internet.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[tehcyder]

Just spell out nigger here and see how you get moded down whatever the context is. It's like there are idiots that routinely search for term and dump mod point without reading. Niggers! Niggers everywhere!

That's because there are very few contexts in which using the word "nigger" does anything other than drag down a conversation to the level of idiocy of most racists. To the vast majority of people, racism is simply not acceptable any more.

Ending Real-Name Policies on Facebook

[billstewart]

Back when my niece was a young teen, she and her school friends used Facebook, but would wipe out their profiles every year and build new ones with new pseudonyms. Protected their privacy that way, and automatically fixes the "erase dumb stuff you said as a kid" problems.

Re:Why does their need to be a law for this?

[tehcyder]

I'll admit when i was a kid i did make some stupid posts, but all i had to do was email the site owners and just asked them to remove it. Ive done this a couple times, never had a problem, you'll be amazed how willing people are to help you out, no need to force them with ridiculous laws.

Good luck asking Facebook to do something out of the goodness of their hearts.

Stupid game playing trolls

[dbIII]

Since you can't even get the gender of the teacher right you are clearly just bluffing with no cards and no clue.

Re:As usual

[ruir]

If you say so. Here a prominent politician misused the right to be forgotten to erase links from google when he was a traitor to our country in the colonials wars, however if instead people search for his nickname instead of his name, the pages can be found.